A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

Every country has the government it deserves.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.